Prognostic value of computed tomography radiomics features in patients with gastric neuroendocrine neoplasm

The present study aimed to investigate the clinical prognostic significance of radiomics signature (R-signature) in patients with gastric neuroendocrine neoplasm (GNEN).

A retrospective study of 182 patients with GNEN who underwent dual-phase enhanced computed tomography (CT) scanning was conducted. LASSO-Cox regression analysis was used to screen the features and establish the arterial, venous and the arteriovenous phase combined R-signature, respectively. The association between the optimal R-signature with the best prognostic performance and overall survival (OS) was assessed in the training cohort and verified in the validation cohort. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to identify the significant factors of clinicopathological characteristics for OS. Furthermore, the performance of a combined radiomics-clinical nomogram integrating the R-signature and independent clinicopathological risk factors was evaluated.

The arteriovenous phase combined R-signature had the best performance in predicting OS, and its C-index value was better than the independent arterial and venous phase R-signature (0.803 vs 0.784 and 0.803 vs 0.756, P<0.001, respectively). The optimal R-signature was significantly associated with OS in the training cohort and validation cohort. GNEN patients could be successfully divided into high and low prognostic risk groups with radiomics score median. The combined radiomics-clinical nomogram combining this R-signature and independent clinicopathological risk factors (sex, age, treatment methods, T stage, N stage, M stage, tumor boundary, Ki67, CD56) exhibited significant prognostic superiority over clinical nomogram, R-signature alone, and traditional TNM staging system (C-index, 0.882 vs 0.861, 882 vs 0.803, and 0.882 vs 0.870 respectively, P<0.001). All calibration curves showed remarkable consistency between predicted and actual survival, and decision curve analysis verified the usefulness of the combined radiomics-clinical nomogram for clinical practice.

The R-signature could be used to stratify patients with GNEN into high and low risk groups. Furthermore, the combined radiomics-clinical nomogram provided better predictive accuracy than other predictive models and might aid clinicians with therapeutic decision-making and patient counseling.